Life’s every charm has fled,

The world is all a wilderness to me;

“For thou art numbered with the silent dead.”

Oh, how my heart o’er this dark thought has bled!

How I have longed for wings to follow thee!

In visions of the night

With angel smile thou beckon’st me away,

Pointing to worlds where hope is free from blight;

And then a cloud comes o’er that brow of light,

Seeming to chide me for my long delay.